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During the 1980s and 1990s (and perhaps even before then) we seemed to hear the same kind of sound effect which cropped up over and over again in various TV programmes and adverts - a breaking glass or window effect. I am not certain what the origin of it is, and how long TV companies have used it, I used to hear it all the time when I was younger. I heard it everywhere from a Crimewatch UK reconstruction in around early 1988 (where an arsonist threw a lighted-rag milk bottle though the front window which set the place on fire and killed the family who was living there at the time - we heard it then); to the sound on Gerard Kenny's hit New York, New York (So Good They Named it Twice) - not the same song as Frank Sinatra's masterpiece. So many places I have heard it I cannot remember all of them. I have tried to get a direct sound effect sample from YouTube and the sounds don't match what I am referring to.
One example is the Smith's Square Crisps advert from the mid 1980s which has a mother and son appearing; the mother says as part of a series of rhyming couplets: "stop making that racket and get yourself down to the shops". And the son literally drives a tank into the home, and we hear that familiar breaking glass sound. Ironically, Lenny Henry used to do those adverts just before that mother and son advert, and that sound was heard on an HP Sauce advert which he narrated nearly ten years later.
This is one example from that Smiths Square crisps advert, 37 seconds in towards the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfXclQ4tykY - sound familiar to you?
It was always used to denote "breaking glass" or "a breaking window" when I was younger, but where did originally come from and when was it first used, I wonder? That advert was on TV in around 1984-1985, and was seen usually during Children's ITV ad breaks, and I am certain that I used to hear it all the time back then. I once broke a bedroom window at home due to sheer frustration of having such a horrible day at school the previous day, and the sound which it made didn't sound anything like what I heard on the TV - was I supposed to assume that it should have done so?
I suppose that it was a bit like the Wilhelm Scream sound - it was made originally for a 1951 film, but due to the original artist failing to copyright it, and also due to saving money trying to do a new sound, it was used in loads of usually American films and animations from the 1950s almost to the present day. I am sure that there are a lot more examples of things like this being reused for similar reasons. And also the sampling of various notes and tunes is similar to that - it becomes so familiar that it seems to parody itself when it us used, and the more it is used, the more it happens. Likewise, Channel 3 North East (aka Tyne Tees in the Bruce Gyngell area); Sky News; and one of those quiz channels also used to use the same tune as each other - I can understand why composers of music and sound effects want to copyright their work in order to stop others from using it.
It's a good job that Nick Lowe didn't use it in his 1978 hit, that's what I say...
One example is the Smith's Square Crisps advert from the mid 1980s which has a mother and son appearing; the mother says as part of a series of rhyming couplets: "stop making that racket and get yourself down to the shops". And the son literally drives a tank into the home, and we hear that familiar breaking glass sound. Ironically, Lenny Henry used to do those adverts just before that mother and son advert, and that sound was heard on an HP Sauce advert which he narrated nearly ten years later.
This is one example from that Smiths Square crisps advert, 37 seconds in towards the end: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfXclQ4tykY - sound familiar to you?
It was always used to denote "breaking glass" or "a breaking window" when I was younger, but where did originally come from and when was it first used, I wonder? That advert was on TV in around 1984-1985, and was seen usually during Children's ITV ad breaks, and I am certain that I used to hear it all the time back then. I once broke a bedroom window at home due to sheer frustration of having such a horrible day at school the previous day, and the sound which it made didn't sound anything like what I heard on the TV - was I supposed to assume that it should have done so?
I suppose that it was a bit like the Wilhelm Scream sound - it was made originally for a 1951 film, but due to the original artist failing to copyright it, and also due to saving money trying to do a new sound, it was used in loads of usually American films and animations from the 1950s almost to the present day. I am sure that there are a lot more examples of things like this being reused for similar reasons. And also the sampling of various notes and tunes is similar to that - it becomes so familiar that it seems to parody itself when it us used, and the more it is used, the more it happens. Likewise, Channel 3 North East (aka Tyne Tees in the Bruce Gyngell area); Sky News; and one of those quiz channels also used to use the same tune as each other - I can understand why composers of music and sound effects want to copyright their work in order to stop others from using it.
It's a good job that Nick Lowe didn't use it in his 1978 hit, that's what I say...
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